This
is not my judgment, but that of universal Nature[88] from before the
beginning of the world."[89] Accordingly the highest reason, typified in
his guide Virgil, rebukes him for bringing compassion to the judgments of
God,[90] and again embraces him and calls the mother that bore him
blessed, when he bids Filippo Argenti begone among the other dogs.[91]
This latter case shocks our modern feelings the more rudely for the
simple pathos with which Dante makes Argenti answer when asked who he
was, "Thou seest I am one that weeps." It is also the one that makes most
strongly for the theory of Dante's personal vindictiveness,[92] and it
may count for what it is worth. We are not greatly concerned to defend
him on that score, for he believed in the righteous use of anger, and
that baseness was its legitimate quarry. He did not think the Tweeds and
Fisks, the political wire-pullers and convention-packers, of his day
merely amusing, and he certainly did think it the duty of an upright and
thoroughly trained citizen to speak out severely and unmistakably. He
believed firmly, almost fiercely, in a divine order of the universe, a
conception whereof had been vouchsafed him, and that whatever and whoever
hindered or jostled it, whether wilfully or blindly it mattered not, was
to be got out of the way at all hazards; because obedience to God's law,
and not making things generally comfortable, was the highest duty of man,
as it was also his only way to true felicity.
Pages:
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70